Snippets reflecting life and thoughts of a writer who has published a fourth novel set in an English village. First, Gypsies Stop tHere, then No Gypsies Served, followed by Shades of Appley Green. Now it's back to the Sixties with Secrets in Appley Green.

Monday, 1 October 2012

The Changing Face of Waterstones

For years Waterstones has been very supportive of its local authors. What is happening now?There are changes going on! Waterstones is selling Kindle e-readers to its
customers, with the idea of customers browsing books in their shops – the touchy feely
version, as normal – and then if they want an ebook version they can download
it on the premises. How this will work for them, as a profitable venture will
remain to be seen. I guess they feel people are doing this anyway, and if they
can be part of the experience so much the better. In other words, if you can’t
beat them, join them!

More to the point here, Waterstones shops are cutting back on their author
signing events. All the booksellers I have spoken to about this across a number
of branches, are pretty upset by this initiative from their newish CEO James
Daunt but feel helpless to express their opinion. For a variety of reasons,
they see author visits as good for business. As I understand it, the focus will be on very
well-known authors (including celebrities who happen to have brought out a
book) giving talks ‘out of hours’ in the evening.The hope is for queues of people lining the
pavements, as in days of old. This idea will make it more difficult for new
writers to become ‘established’. Come on bookshops! Surely you can’t expect publishers and authors to do all the promotional work for you!!

Waterstones launch book signing
of first novel, Gypsies Stop tHere 2008

I have done 3 book launches and over 30 book signings in
Waterstones since 2008, when I first launched Gypsies Stop tHere (as well as Borders and events).
﻿﻿They can be
hard work, but I thoroughly enjoy doing them (not all authors do), have met people
from all walks of life and had stimulating discussions at my little table of
books. People have waved goodbye smilingly as they went out of the shop with a
signed copy of my book(s), like old friends.

In The Author, the
Society of Authors quarterly magazine, I read: “In August,
The Bookseller reported that Waterstones might be getting cold feet about
hosting author events in its stores. The root of the problem seems to be some
individual writers, uninvited, over-zealously promoting their books to
customers in Waterstones shops …"It
would seem that “inappapropiate activities of a few” have spoilt it for the
rest of us - who do not appear to have
overcooked things. Indeed I have heard of one writer who is particularly
forthcoming – the culprit shall remain anonymous; very diplomatically, booksellers
can never recall his name, but from the descriptions I am sure he is the same
one. I completely understand that
customers do not want to be accosted; there is a gentle way of doing things,
but simple guidelines could be suggested and the situation easily ‘policed’ by
the booksellers.

Launch of Shades of Appley Green 2012

I am not sure what the future holds for authors – one branch
manager has already said that my visit was their last one of the ‘old signing events’
but they hope to arrange something else
with me soon; so I hope this indicates that all is not lost! Meanwhile,
inevitably, much as I value the strong relationship I have built over the years
with Waterstones, (with all my books stocked by their wholesaler so they get a
discount on a par with mainstream publishers), perhaps I shall need to switch my
focus to smaller booksellers and ebooks. Many other authors must be in the same
boat and I would love to hear from you.

13 comments:

A marvellous article Miriam. I am one of those authors who had arranged a signing with a large Waterstones only to have it pulled at the eleventh hour when the policy came into play. The staff and I were both disappointed but hey, that's life!I succeeded in getting into local bookshops who are independent and still like promoting local authors so my advice to others is seek out the little man in the street.Thanks for this insight. Much appreciated.

Sadly, our little man in the (High) Street couldn't afford the rent! Oh, dear. I had a similar experience, Carol - a city-based WS saying they would host a book-signing if I sold 'x' amount at a smaller WS store. I honoured that (in a customer-friendly manner. The staff at the smaller store were delighted). Unfortunately, the city-based WS didn't feel honour-bound to keep their side of the agreement. As a published author who knows the importance of presenting a professional image at all times, I found the whole experience pretty demeaning, to be honest.

Blogged about this last week - http://carolhedges.blogspot.com. Same story. Suggesting Tweeting @waterstones to let them know how disappointed we are. Read the comments I got. If there is nothing 'more' than Amazon, people will go to Amazon. Shame!

I don't understand why they're stopping the signings in the first place? It doesn't make any sense to me? Surely its a win-win situation? What am I missing? As a Brit abroad (Portugal), I've never had a book signing. There are few book stores in this little corner of the world! I sell much more ebooks these days!

**sighs deeply** I totally missed the boat on the WS signings. My book came out after the new policy came into place and I have had rejection after rejection. I've been quoted reasons such as the margins on any sale I might make would be simply too small for them to be worth the effort. I don't really get that, I have to confess. I mean, for a local, new author to be there for a little while during store hours--it's not like they're losing anything? And if there's a buzz in the store from a signing, surely there will be extra business as people pick up and buy more books? I am totally stunned by the new policy. Whether or not I'll manage to blag an opportunity remains to be seen. Great post, Miriam, and very timely. Good luck with it all and keep us posted!

I agree it's a backwards mentality shift on the part of Waterstones, but the lovely thing about policies and rulings is that they are never fixed and can always change again, assuming someone with smarts at the top of the food chain eventually twigs this ; )

I have, on occasion, travelled longish distances (e.g. Reading to Brighton, twice) to attend author events at Waterstones. I am worried that the supply of worthwhile events is drying up. I do hope thepolicy will get changed eventually.

It's good to hear from a reading, bookloving customer! I am interested to know how you would define 'worthwhile'. Readers have their favourite genres and so on, but what kind of author would justify travelling a distance, for you, Pierre? You don't have to answer that if you would rather not :-)

I think it's quite sad how we have campaigns like "save our bookshop" or whatever, yet a major organisation like WS is holding back. The other thing I find quite sad is how so many celebrity "authors" are being given a huge amount of promotion simply because of who they are, whilst the talented author has to step aside. It's simply not good enough.